


Hidden Emotions

by StarlingHawke (Bowm8935)



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: 707's depression is kicking his ass, Angst, F/M, Genderneutral MC/reader, Kind of happy ending, M/M, Other, possible spoilers for 707's route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9288443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bowm8935/pseuds/StarlingHawke
Summary: Originated from a prompt on Tumblr (as per usual, anymore)Saeyoung has been withdrawing from everyone in his life, becoming more and more reclusive. When Saeran can no longer reach him, he calls on you to help his twin out, even if he doesn't want to be helped.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure I adequately managed to capture the intricacies of his emotions this time... usually I feel more confident when I write about depression since I draw off of my own, and I admittedly cried while writing this, but... I'm not convinced that I still did him justice. Apologies if I failed.

He makes it so hard.

I’m not sure that he actually means to, but he does. It’s just the way he is. He’s spent so long alone, building up walls and erecting a believable facade to stave off anyone who tries to get close. Before that it was even worse, and both combine to make him think he’s not worthy of love or friendship. He’s constantly pushing people away and trying to punish himself for things that are not his fault. It gets frustrating sometimes and in those moments all I want is to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shake to try to snap some sense into him.

Or maybe I'd prefer to kiss him senseless. Either way, it's impossible.

Saeran's been getting better by leaps and bounds. Having friends who check in on him but never push has done wonders, and it's not uncommon to see him heading out with Yoosung or Zen. Both men have different ways of bringing him out of his shell and helping him relax; it's wonderful to see him like that. I feel like a proud parent sometimes, even if we don't have much of a relationship ourselves. He's made his apologies to me and he's no longer hostile, but he keeps his distance and shuts down if I try to reach out. I've learned to accept this and move on, even if I don't like it.

But as Saeran improves, Saeyoung gets worse. I don't know if it's that he feels like he's not needed by his brother anymore or what, but he's becoming more and more reclusive, shutting himself up in his computer room and refusing to talk to anyone. Even me, his supposed best friend besides Yoosung.

It's why I'm here today. I knew something was going on when Saeran's name appeared on my phone, his stuttering and anxious voice begging me to come over to try to get his twin to eat something. It has only been a few days since I last managed to get Saeyoung to speak to me and he was very… well, rude to me that day, but he seems to have deteriorated even more quickly since then. Saeran says he won't get out of bed or eat, and that he curses and throws things roughly 50% of the time when Saeran tries to get him to do something.

It's odd to hear this from Saeran since not all too long ago that description fit him.

I decide to not worry about the quality of the food I put in him as I prepare some fish-shaped bread, grabbing both Dr Pepper and a bottle of water as I make my way to his room. My first priority is to get him to eat _something,_ even if it's not healthy. I can work up to that once I figure out what’s wrong.

My hands are full as I nudge open the slightly ajar door (I assume Saeran left it this way- I’ll have to thank him later since he bolted as soon as he let me inside), raising an eyebrow at the unmoving lump in the middle of the bed. Kicking the wood behind me, the door slams shut and I set down what I’m carrying on the nearest surface and fold my arms across my chest in contemplation. I’m not sure how to approach this problem since I don’t know _exactly_ what is wrong, but before I can think too much the blankets shift around the lump that I assume is Saeyoung a little.

“Get the fuck out, Saeran.” His muffled voice is lower than his normal baritone and is slightly hoarse, the raspy quality not one I’ve heard on him before. Instead of responding, I shift closer to the bed, debating between sitting next to where I figure his head is or at the bottom of it. If he starts throwing things, either is risky- but no risk, no reward, right?

I'm nearing where he is when he whips off the covers and lobs something at me. I duck just in time to keep something white from hitting my chest, and I look behind me to see that he threw… the stuffed cat I gave him jokingly for his birthday? Picking it up, I frown at it and turn to him to find him staring at me. His eyes are wide and his mouth slightly open, regret mixed with shock plainly written on his face. The cat stinks of body odor and something indiscernible and I make a face, tossing it to him. Has he been sleeping with it all this time? That's something I would never have expected.

He catches the toy with relative ease, sitting up a little more and rearranging the blankets on his lap. Chest muscles are laid out bare for me to see since he's not wearing a shirt - and if I had to guess, I'd say he's not wearing pants either. One hand is scrubbing through his messy red hair as he continues to stare at me, his face shifting into one of denial and disbelief. Oh, what I would give to be able to know exactly what's going through his mind right now.

“So I’m hallucinating now. That’s great,” he mumbles, dropping his eyes to the bedsheet he’s now picking at. I tilt my head and furrow my eyebrows in confusion; he thinks I’m a hallucination? Even after returning his cat? What on earth is going on?

Choosing my words carefully, I move closer to the bed and sit down on the side of it gingerly, not wanting to do something to set him off again. “I’m not… a hallucination, Saeyoung. I’m really here, and I want to help.” I’ve never been good with being comforting, so I’m well aware that my voice comes out less calm than it should. I also know that there were probably much better things to say in this situation, but again- this is not my forte.

He shifts but doesn’t answer, fingers picking at the little balls of fabric on top of his comforter aggressively. I scoot a little closer, dipping my head down to try to look up at him but he immediately moves away, avoiding my eyes like looking at them will give him the plague. Pulling the blanket up around him, he completely engulfs himself in it with the exception of his face, pulling it tight around him and turning away from me. It’s subtle but I can see that he’s actually shivering underneath all those blankets; could he be physically ill? That wouldn’t explain all of his behavior but at least it would account for him not eating.

Hesitancy gone out the door, I close enough distance between us to place a hand on his head, his eyes going wide before he jerks away from my touch as though I burned him. The contact didn’t last long but it was long enough for me to feel that he isn’t running a fever, for better or worse. It also is apparently enough to convince him of my reality.

“Why are you here?” he asks, but it sounds more like a question he’s presenting to himself rather than me. “You shouldn’t be here.” His lips are pursed and his eyes closed, many emotions flashing across his face one right after the other. They change so fast that I miss most of them, but I’m able to pick out a few familiar ones; hope, anger, sadness, defeat. My heart aches as I watch him wrestle to regain control again, trying to return to his go-to neutral expression. I don’t know what to do, but I want to help him so, so badly.

I settle on reaching out and placing a hand gently on his knee, feeling him flinch beneath my touch but allowing it. “Why shouldn’t I be here?” I ask quietly, my eyes searching his face for any hint of why he feels this way. “I’m your friend and I care about you. You’re not taking care of yourself at all anymore and Saeran says you’re rejecting him. You’ve shut everyone out in the RFA and your brother; I can feel you trying to push me out the door, too. But please, don’t.” There’s a burning behind my eyes and a lump rising in my throat as tears well up, but I refuse to let them fall. “Don’t shut me out. I want to help you.”

He shakes his head aggressively, the blanket falling down around his shoulders unevenly. When he finally opens his eyes and looks at me, I gasp and bring a hand to my mouth at the amount of pain and self-loathing I find there. There’s none of his usual cheer or laughter, not even a hint of it. This is the side of him that he's mentioned and that I've glimpsed in the past but never seen unfiltered like I am right now.

“It's better this way, if no one cares for me.” He looks away again, pulling in a shaky breath. The bed shifts underneath me as he readjusts his position, still not removing my hand from his leg. This, more than anything, tells me that even if he believes what he’s saying, it’s not what he wants.

I remain silent, feeling the heaviness in the air now surrounding us. It feels like he’s bursting at the seams so I wait, knowing that when he’s ready he’ll talk more. My thumb moves lightly in small circles across the blanket, light enough that I’m not even sure if he can feel it at first. But his eyes flick down to look at it and he exhales loudly, and for a brief moment I feel him moving a hand underneath the blanket towards mine. It stops just short and his body tenses, his face closing off completely. Chewing on the inside of my lip, I wait. It’s not easy and every cell in my body is screaming at me to speak, but I still wait. Pushing him will get us nowhere.

Gradually he relaxes minutely, and the only reason I know is because I can feel his quads shiver a bit. He turns his face into the blanket and lets out a strangled sob, nearly causing me to jolt from my position a bit away into his lap. All I want to do is hug him and tell him how much I love him, to reassure him that he deserves everything he thinks he doesn’t. But I can’t, because I know he won’t let me. He’s never outright explicitly told me not to love him, but he’s hinted deeply at it. With how hard it was to convince him to let me in as a friend, I can’t imagine how difficult that would be.

When his face turns back to mine, his golden eyes are filled with such a deep despair that there’s no way I can even begin to comprehend it. Tears are pooling there, the golden hues of his iris shifting slightly behind the shimmering liquid. It’s simultaneously the most beautiful and most heartbreaking sight I’ve ever been privy to seeing and I just… don’t know what to do. How can I help him fix whatever has broken? Can I? Am I even capable of that?

He releases a shuddering breath, the effort that he’s putting into holding back his tears visible in the tense lines of his face. “I don’t deserve it. Any of it. Friendship, family, love, anything. All I do is hurt anyone close to me,” he says finally, his voice broken. I squeeze his thigh gently to let him know that I’m there and that I’m listening, watching as he pulls his lip in between his teeth, turning his gaze down to the comforter. “What am I worth to anyone? I couldn’t even protect my only brother. Everything he went through is my fault. I couldn’t save him…”

I reach out and grab his cheek, surprised when I find it slick with tears. He must’ve started crying when he looked away. Pulling his face up to make him look at me, I look him dead in the eye and shake my head slowly. “None of that is true. It’s not your fault, you did your best to help him out of a shitty situation. And you did save him, remember? You and I, we chased him to Mint Eye and got him out. You’ve done so much in the past year to help him, Saeyoung. So much. And he knows it. Look at him now! He’s making friends, he’s going out. He’s even trying to help you now; he’s the one who called me to come over.” I’m searching his eyes to see if any of what I’m saying is helping, but there’s no indication of that. If anything, I seem to be making it _worse_ somehow. “Hey, hey, hey,” I say softly when he shivers again, his mouth twitching as tears roll down his cheeks faster. “You have so many people who care about you and who would do anything they can to help you in a heartbeat. Please don’t think that you have to go through this alone.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. His gaze hardens and a hand pops out of the comforter to shove mine away before retreating back inside. “Saeran doesn’t need me,” he says, surprising me with the bitterness lacing the words. “I’m the reason he even needed to get better. And now that he has his new friends, he _definitely_ doesn’t need the person who fucked up his life to begin with around.” Sliding down on the bed, he dislodges the hand I had on his thigh and ends up laying down again, pulling the blankets up over him so that he’s completely hidden. “Besides, I doubt that I’m the reason he called you here. Maybe you should go see what _he_ needs instead of wasting your time pretending you care about me.”

“Wh-what?” I can’t keep the hurt out of my voice at what he says. The fact that he thinks I’m pretending is like a lance through my heart and I can no longer hold the tears at bay, feeling them forge a path down my cheeks to drip on my shirt. “I don’t understand why you’re saying these things. I’m not _pretending_ to care; I really do!”

A muffled snort comes from underneath the sheets. “As if. Nobody cares about me. As they shouldn’t. So go away.”

“Sae _young!”_ I shout, unable to help myself anymore. Rolling off the bed, I reach out and grab the sheets, ripping them off the bed and onto the floor in one desperate motion. He’s curled up in a ball but peeks out from behind his hands at me, but I don’t give him time to do much else before I launch myself back onto the bed. Landing next to him, I wrap my arms around him and pull him into my chest, ignoring the sputtering and weak protests he makes. My tears are falling unchecked like rivers at this point but I don’t care; I lay my cheek on top of his hair and just let them fall, not even bothering to hold back my own sobs. “Please qu-quit saying that. I d-do care, a l-lot about y-you!” I manage to choke out, my voice thick with emotion. He appears frozen in my grasp but I can feel his sobs wracking his body, so I hold him tighter. “I d-don’t kn-know what exactly it i-is that is m-making you feel l-like th-this, b-but I’m h-here f-for you.”

Suddenly his arms shoot out and wrap around me, clutching me so tight that it is a little hard to breathe. It’s fine, I let him because if that’s what he needs, then fine. If this is all I can do to help, fine. This is fine.

I hear his muffled voice against my chest but I can’t make out what he’s saying. “Wh-what was that?” I ask, tugging him up gently so that I’ll be able to understand. He comes willingly, but immediately buries his head in my shoulder instead of looking at me.

“Please don’t choose him,” he whimpers, his voice frail and cracking. A powerful sob tears through his body and he shakes after, pulling me in even tighter.

I don’t understand what he means. Choose who? I try to muddle through the small amount of information but my brain is starting to fog up from not being able to adequately breathe. I loathe asking him to loosen his hold on me but it’s either that or become a useless limp noodle and I doubt that’ll be of much help.

I move my arms to rest on his and tap them gently. “Can you… can you, um, not squeeze me so much? I’m having problems breathing.” Instead of just loosening his arms he withdraws completely, a look of genuine horror on his face.

“I hurt you,” he mutters, a hand going through his hair. “I can’t do anything right…”

My hands grasp his quickly, tugging him back closer. “No,” I say, much harsher than I mean and his eyes widen just the slightest as he looks at me. “You didn’t hurt me. And I’m not going to leave your side, no matter what you say. You’re stuck with me.”

There’s hope shining on his face again, peeking out past the sadness. I feel like I have even less of an understanding of the situation than I did originally, but at least he’s _talking_ to me now. That’s a start.

“Even after all I’ve done, you’re not giving up,” he whispers, his eyes darting between mine. For a moment I allow myself to believe that we’re maybe moving past this but his mouth suddenly twists into a snarl, the hope disappearing as quickly as it came. He yanks his hands out of mine and moves to edge of the bed, leaning down to grab up the blankets again. “But you should. Saeran would take better care of you. He doesn’t hurt everything he touches.”

My tongue pushes softly on the back of my teeth and my mouth is slightly open as I stare in confusion at him; what does _Saeran_ have to do with me? He’s working on pulling the comforter around him to hide again but I have no intention of letting him undo all the progress we just made. He’s about to pull it tight around him when I reach out and snag it from him, depositing myself in his lap before wrapping it around both of us. When I glance up at him, his cheeks are red and his eyebrows have disappeared beneath the fringe of his hair.

“Look, I don’t know why you’re bringing up Saeran right now, but I’m not here to talk about him. I’m here to talk about _you.”_ I do my best to keep my voice firm despite the fact that this is the closest I’ve ever been to him; now is not the time to be entertaining inappropriate thoughts. Slugging myself mentally, I shake my head to dislodge anything else not helpful and lean my head against his chest. “Please. Let me help.”

“You’re so warm. I don’t deserve that warmth.” Despite his words, he envelops me in his arms again, tugging me even tighter against him. His nose goes into my hair and I swear I can feel the press of his lips against my scalp. Surely that’s just wishful thinking, though?

I place one of my hands on top of his and am surprised when he intertwines our fingers, squeezing softly against mine. “He’s in love with you,” he croaks, his breath warm on my head as he speaks. “Saeran. He’s in love with you and he’s been through so much. He deserves you.” His exhale is shaky and his next words are whispered, but his voice breaks even then. “I don’t.”

The words hit me like a bolt of lightning, carving a path through my body and leaving raw and frazzled nerves in their wake. The only sound is that of our breathing as I process what he said, his breaths still unsteady and mine shallow. My heart is beating so loudly at this point that I’m sure he can hear it but neither of us move in response. When I finally work up the courage to respond, I lift my head and meet his gaze, intent on knowing what impact _my_ words will have on _him._

“But I don’t want Saeran.” I pause to let them sink in, watching as his eyebrows dip slightly in response. Opening my mouth, I falter momentarily; should I continue? Dare I cross the invisible line that had been drawn between us for so long now?

“When… when we became friends, you never said that I wasn’t allo- erm. You took a long time to let me in, then. And I - I told myself that would be enough. That friendship was… was what I wanted from you. But it wasn’t the truth. And it’s been hard to keep m-my feelings hidden, but I have, because I thought that’s what you wanted. That it’s what you needed, but now… now I think, maybe I was wrong.” I take a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut and dropping my head, knowing that if I keep staring into those eyes I won’t be able to finish. Those eyes that are filled with a multitude of emotions as I speak, that are searching my face for honesty constantly. “I-I wasn’t entirely truthful with you. I was in love with you back then, and I’m not over you. I still have those feelings. Sometimes I hate it, because you’ve never acted like you wanted that from me and they’re so hard to control. And I just… I just wanted you to know. That no matter what you do or say, I won’t leave your side. And Saeran? He’s nice and all but he doesn’t have my heart.”

The silence rings out loudly between us when I stop talking and I release a puff of air, worried that despite the sincerity of my confession, he won’t believe me. He’s so deep in the pit of despair that I don’t know if my words will reach him and even if they do, if they’ll matter. My confession may have come too late.

Fingers creep down my jaw and land under my chin, pulling my face up towards his. I risk slitting my eyes open, surprised to see a completely different expression on his face than I’ve seen this whole time. There’s hope there, yes, but also something akin to a type of gentle fondness. My breath hitches in my throat at the raw emotion laid bare in his eyes.

“What makes you think I don’t feel the same way?” he asks softly, his thumb rubbing along my jaw light enough to leave a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Before I have a chance to respond, he lets out a quiet laugh, shaking his head and dropping his hand. “Nevermind, I know the answer to that question.” He pulls me back into his chest, dropping his chin on my head and letting out a hum.

I shift slightly against him, my free hand wrapping around his waist. “Will you tell me what’s wrong now?” I whisper, hoping that I’ve made my way past the final barrier keeping his turmoil hidden from me. “Let me help you.”

The sigh that escapes him is long, drawn-out. His hand gently scrapes against my scalp, tracing a circle against the back of my head. I think it’s meant as comfort to both him as well as me, and I allow myself to relax against him and give him time. “Saeran doesn’t need me anymore,” he answers finally, a small shudder flowing through him. “And… I feel like no one else wants me around because I’m not… I’m not a good man. I’ve done bad things, I’ve made mistakes. I’m useless.”

I shake my head and try to pull back to look up at him, but he firmly keeps me pressed against his chest. “I know it’s not… necessarily all true,” he continues, his voice growing a little more confident. “But that’s just the way I am. I can’t stop these… thoughts… and I just… nothing has been helping…”

“Saeran still needs you,” I reply, tightening my arm around his waist. “ _I_ still need you. Please, just tell me how to help you. I want to help.” My desperation comes through in my voice. Normally I would hate it, but right now I can’t find it within me to care about how I sound. All I want is for him to feel better, whatever it takes.

His grip tightens around me and I hear his breathing falter. “Just stay with me.” It’s a simple request but I can hear all of the emotion packed behind it, and part of me is relieved to hear that I’m not the only one who’s voice is tinged with desperation.

I snuggle into him and let out a small laugh, nodding against his bare chest. “For as long as you need me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? Did you love it? Did you... *gasp* hate it? Let me know! I'm always open for reviews, comments and helpful criticism.  
> I'm here to grow. :)
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr as [cutiesaeran](http://cutiesaeran.tumblr.com/) or twitter [@MysticHawke](https://twitter.com/MysticHawke/)!


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